Week 3 - Requirements, Process and Teams
Learning Objectives:
The overall theme of this week’s lessons is software engineering processes: how do we organize our (non-programming) activities so that we can build some software project as efficiently as possible? The lessons will center on these four themes:
- How do we understand what software we are supposed to build?
- How do we organize our development activities?
- How do we estimate how long a software project will take?
- How do we build an effective team?
Important Dates:
- Team Formation Due Feb 9 by 10pm
- HW2 Due Feb 11 by 10pm
- Project Specification
Lessons:
- Requirements Gathering Slides PDF, PPT
- Software Process Slides PDF, PPT
- Agile Planning and Estimation Slides PDF, PPT
- Teams Slides PDF, PPT
Additional Readings:
The following books provide additional depth on the topics in this week’s lessons, and are available for free through Northeastern Libraries. To create your account, first visit this page: https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/temporary-access/ and then select “Not Listed? Click Here” for institution, then enter your @northeastern.edu email address. After this first account creation, you’ll be able to log in directly to Safari Books Online with your @northeastern.edu email and no need for 2FA (hooray!).
For more reflections on software processes in the 1980’s, David Parnas’ article: “Software Aspects of Strategic Defense Systems”. For a discussion of various xDD approaches, see Rebecca Wirfs-Brock on What Drives Design?. Chuck Rossi’s 2014 Release Engineering Keynote includes some great discussion of Facebook’s mobile release process, now outdated, but quite interesting; there is a discussion of team structure around 18 minutes in. Sarah Mei’s 2018 Power of Agile talk provides a great discussion of embracing agile values that work for your team, while leaving behind toxic practices. Miscellaneous: Investigating the origins of the tire swing meme